Podcasts

If you are introducted in recording a podcast for Functional Ecology, we have a short non-technical guide here.

November 2014

Ken Thompson talks to Katie Field about her Virtual Issue Mycorrhizal networks in ecosystem structure and functioning. The vast majority of land plants form mutualistic symbioses with soil-dwelling fungi known as mycorrhizas, which can link many plants through fungal hyphae in a common mycelial network. This Virtual Issue highlights three major themes in mycorrhizal research: the movement of plant-fixed carbon, reciprocal exchange of nutrients, and the wider impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function.

October 2013

Liesje Mommer's keynote speech for the Mechanisms of Plant Competition symposium on using molecular techniques to look at below-ground plant competition and facilitation. For other journal-sponsored symposia and workshops from INTECOL, check out the playlist here.

September 2013

As part of our new Mechanisms of Plant Competition Special Feature, Susan Schwimming talks to Alan Knapp about plant competition in water-limited environments.
Water is the primary factor limiting the growth and productivity of land plants, and fluctuations in plant-available water are ubiquitous in most terrestrial environments, due to variable and unpredictable rainfall. Evolution has produced numerous strategies of compromise between the conflicting goals of maximizing growth and reproduction when water is available and minimizing the risk of mortality when it is not. Because no species is able to pre-empt all opportunities for water and nutrient uptake, many plant species can coexist. However, the mechanisms responsible for making this stable, competitive coexistence possible are often hidden and difficult to study experimentally.
Understanding and predicting how plant communities will respond to contemporary climate change remains a challenge to science, but one that can be guided by addressing the fundamental ways in which fluctuations in plant-available water interact with competition, between either adults or seedlings.

Understanding animal movements involves a complex association of factors. In addition to anatomical constraints and factors like the surrounding environment, more cryptic factors can play a role-- such as an animal's internal, physiological state, or navigational capacity. Complex movement models have been constructed in an attempt to infer an animal's internal state based on movement behaviours, but direct studies of the effect of an individual’s internal state on movement behaviour have been lacking.
African elephants are known to alter their behaviour in response to their physiological state, with elevated stress hormone concentrations being associated with reclusive behaviour and aggression towards humans. A better understanding of the link between internal, physiological state and the use of space in relation to the proximity of environmental features and refugia is important in mitigating human-elephant conflict. Read the lay summary for more information, or read the article online: Jachowski, D. S., Montgomery, R. A., Slotow, R., Millspaugh, J. J. (2013), Unravelling complex associations between physiological state and movement of African elephants. Functional Ecology. doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12118.

March 2013

Recent analysis of global datasets has shown that plants are constrained in how they allocate resources to their leaves, with trade-offs between building sturdy leaves with a long lifespan that are inefficient in capturing light or building flimsy leaves with a short lifespan and high efficiency. However, it is unknown whether similar patterns occur at more local scales, particularly when you consider the same plant species growing under different conditions. In this study, Justin P. Wright talks with Alan Knapp about the surprising results of examining the effects of varying nitrogen availability and water table depth on the form and function of leaves of over 20 species of wetland plants and what that means for ecologists looking to predict how the addition or subtraction of species will affect the way that ecosystems function. Read the lay summary for more information, read the article online:Wright, J. P., Sutton-Grier, A. (2012), Does the leaf economic spectrum hold within local species pools across varying environmental conditions?. Functional Ecology, 26: 1390–1398. doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12001

December 2012

Alan Knapp interviews Brad Butterfield about his paper "A functional-comparative approach to facilitation between and its context-dependence", part of an upcoming Special Feature on Mechanisms of Plant Competition, and the importance of taking a trait-based approach to plant facilitation. A great deal of research has been conducted on the mechanisms and outcomes of plant competition, what traits help plants compete, but less well understood is how such traits affect the outcome of positive interactions among plants.

March 2012

In this latest podcast, Alan Knapp, Editor of Functional Ecology, interviews Ryan Sponseller and his co-authors on their paper 'Variation in monsoon precipitation drives spatial and temporal patterns of Larrea tridentata growth in the Sonoran Desert'.

January 2012

Julia Cooke is the Haldane Prize Winner for 2011. In this podcast, Alan Knapp, Editor, Functional Ecology interviews Julia Cooke about her paper: Silicon concentration and leaf longevity: is silicon a player in the leaf dry mass spectrum?

Functional Ecology's First Podcast September 2011

In Functional Ecology's first podcast, Phil Hulme talks to Alan Knapp, about his study which is the first comparison testing for consistency in flowering phenology of species established in the wild in both their native Europe and as introduced aliens in North America.